The invention relates to a device for electronically simulating the position of a component, in particular the angular position of a crankshaft. The device has a first counter whose counter state is a measure of the respectively assumed position of the component. The first counter counts counter pulses which are determined by the respective occurrence of a periodic event which in each case marks a position of the component.
Electronic counters are used in many technological fields. They serve for the quantitative detection of a continuously repeating process. The counting function is triggered here by applying an event-dependent clock frequency to the input of a counting circuit which is associated with the counter. For the execution of an event evaluation it is known to connect upstream for example a gate logic which permits selective masking out of individual counting clocks so that the counting circuit counts correspondingly more slowly. Furthermore, it is known to reduce the clock frequency by a permanently prescribed ratio by connecting upstream a frequency divider so that the counting circuit also counts correspondingly more slowly.
If such a counting circuit is used, for example when determining the present crankshaft position of an internal combustion engine, there are limits placed on the known counting circuits which only permit the crankshaft position to be broken down into relatively large angular increments. However, since it is very important to determine the angular position of crankshaft relatively accurately, in particular in order to break down control signals in downstream series control units for engine control, the extremely inaccurate control signals which can be generated with the known counting circuits are of little interest in practice.